A project manager cannot afford to take a shortcut during any stage of his project. Shortcuts always mean compromise. And compromise in a project means a sure death sooner or later. There are various leadership qualities that a project manager needs to inculcate in himself so as to reach a stage...

Software testing is as important during a project lifecycle as hard disciplined practice for a contestant preparing himself for a gold medal in Olympics. During this exhaustive practice, the player tries to overcome all his flaws and shortcomings. For this the player need to understand first the...

A successful product development does not mean its deployment will also go successfully. Similarly a great project deployment team does not ensure a good quality product development. Both are entirely different and need a different attention. That is where the role of Quality Assurance comes into...

A successful project closure doesn't mean there will be stopgaps any further and all clouds of danger on the project are over. Project sign-off and project closure if happen on a successful note, are always welcomed by any project implementation team. Some activities that still need a lot of...

After completion of every project, as a project manager, you need to introspect to find out few answers. All projects might not end on a positive note. A project that travels its complete path without a single deviation to its timelines or financial guidelines can be termed as 100% successful. But...

At times it might not be visible in the beginning about the learning your team would be taking along by the end of the project. But depending on the rough tides encountered during the project lifecycle, it might turn out that each member is carrying a heap of learning from the project. One thing is...

When you are asked to lead a project it is very important for you to understand it to the root level and gain first hand experience. This might require a lot of discussions, interviews and brainstorming sessions with your own management, customer and internal team owners. Ensure that all such...

Recently I attended an event where a stand-up comedian was invited as a gap filler after one of the interesting social media related interesting sessions. It is irrelevant to name that newcomer comedian who probably didn't know about how to ensure not to cross that thin line gap between live comedy...

Project Management is a tricky job. The job of a project manager is like a car mechanic who adjusts the average by adjusting clutch, fuel discharge and brakes. All three have a different connection if we see in project management perspective. The clutch adjustment will lead to a better speed...

Project management must have inbuilt sensors for detection of flaws (or shortfalls) in the system to monitor project progress quality. These sensors have to carry a fast response time and should be active in all kind of environments of the project management ecosystem. The sensors developed should...

Project Scope, project timelines and monitoring are the prime tasks of a project manager. If a team member fails to honor his or her individual tasks timelines, it is not the failure of that individual team member. It clearly indicates a lack on a monitoring process. The monitoring process has to...

As a project manager it is important for you to perform lot of conversions. First conversion that you do in your project management journey is customer requirement to project requirement. Similarly there are many conversions that happen during your project journey that we can list down as:

Let us understand few terminologies before getting into the related information.
MEED is over fifty-five years old organization engaged in organizing over thirty conferences and summits meant mainly for C-level executives. These...

By 2020, it is estimated that the volume of data transacted on the internet will increase by three times. It will be over two billion trillion bytes of data. More interesting revelation is the result of a research that says most of this data will be video. Definitely the text content that means is...

Delivery on time is most crucial in project management. As a project manager if you have that art of maintaining this consistency over a period of time then you can call yourself a superb project manager. But then you have to ensure that this delivery on time has happened without any changes in the...

This is the replication of already running successful training mission for Airmen and Soldiers in North Carolina, where more than 250 have already been trained successfully. The program was initiated under the leadership of project management instructors Bill Flanagan and John Keane from Black...

To break the deadlocks arising in a project, a product manager needs to learn and master an art of breaking those deadlocks. One of the manners to do that is a compromise. A compromise in a deadlock situation can break the deadlock and things can start moving further.
When it is a clash of...

Whether it is Agile or the legacy Waterfall, the life must go on for all projects in a successful manner. There have been success and failure cases in both scenarios' real life projects. Even if Agile loyalists keep claiming that Agile is stronger than Waterfall and assurance rate of success in...

When you are covering the final phase of your project the top management of the other side will have only one question in mind - what after handover and sign off. Usually, that is the reason why they become over cautious and start probing much about the product in question. There might be some...

Release phase of a project is one of the most customer intensive phases where for each release you have to take a final sign off from customer. The release might be of final documents submitted to the customer, training imparted to key users regarding product usage or the product handover. There...

The role of a project manager varies in various phases of a project. He has to act as a single star in the movie playing various roles as per the demand of the story. All the lead characters of the story are to be played by a project manager himself. In the testing phase, the project manager is...

As discussed in my previous post, a project manager is supposed to carry various hats and has to be smart enough to understand which hat to wear in the respective phase of a project. When a project is in the development phase, a project manager has to act more than a development manager for various...

A project manager has to have multiple faces during the lifecycle of a project. There is no harm in carrying various hats or masks to wear on various occasions, during various phases of a project. In reality, there is a lot of heat transfer during a project. There are moments when a huge pressure...

The role and responsibilities of team members change while moving from legacy waterfall methodology to Agile. In Agile the whole perspective and outlook of each and every team member changes. There is a higher level energy engagement requirement from each member thereby calling for high energy and...

If it is a once sentence difference that clearly distinguishes between Agile and Waterfall it goes as the title of this post. There is in reality no "Maybe" in Agile. For customer requirement at the start of a fresh iteration the exercise is done to mark either "Yes" or "No" against it. The tasks...

If someone says Agile is faster than waterfall, it is right. If someone says Agile is less costlier than waterfall, then also it is right. But it is right only in context when the complete lifecycle cost is compared. Overall iteration costs might be higher in case of Agile but since there is less...

Agile concept evolved around two decades ago and is in practice for over a decade now. Within last decade or so the practice has evolved to an optimized level and has proven its usefulness and beneficial results. Project Management took a new turn with involvement of Agile in it. To a substantial...

Customer requirement capturing phase generally is the period when exact requirements of the customer emerge. It starts with the "What-is" situation going forward to customer's "to-be" stage. The latter in any case has to be a better and advanced condition from the former. Current situation might be...

What happens when a project fails. It is the turn of project manager to give valid reasons to safeguard himself. Management on the other hand have their own reasons to fire project manager especially if it is a high stake project. A direct question that goes to project manager is why he did not...

Hardly 13% of projects see the light of day within prescribed timelines, budget and customer satisfaction. If any of the three is less than 100% in the project conclusion summary finalized at the end of a project, don't treat it as a successful project closure. Actually a project manager has to be...

This is a task management tool that allows to work collaboratively among different team members despite their geographic differences. The beauty of this product is that it builds tasks in a tree-type model and hence helps you in planning and organizing tasks in a better way. The product is called...

Business Analysis Certification has been launched recently (in November 2014) by PMI (Project Management Institute). A Business Analysis Practice Guide has also been launched in wake of the above mentioned certification. The two excellent online community efforts are in place for last twenty years...

Recently read this book 10 Stacks To Success: How To Achieve Success One Goal At A Time by Jerome "Jay" Isip and found it quite useful for project managers. There are ten great lessons for a project manager that will definitely be a boon for them to get synergies in...

To cater to needs arising out locally and globally, Rivier University (that was earlier known as Rivier College, founded in 1933), has planned to launch three new graduate degree programs. Rivier University is located in Nashua, New Hampshire in the United States. The degrees to be launched are...

As per a recent news published in The Hindu Businessline, India would be needing 0.4 million project managers every year till 2020. This figure is as per the PMI India. The figures have evolved based on the advancement and development projections presented by the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Based on the volume and...

A project manager cannot afford to take a shortcut during any stage of his project. Shortcuts always mean compromise. And compromise in a project means a sure death sooner or later. There are various leadership qualities that a project manager needs to inculcate in himself so as to reach a stage where the chances of...

Software testing is as important during a project lifecycle as hard disciplined practice for a contestant preparing himself for a gold medal in Olympics. During this exhaustive practice, the player tries to overcome all his flaws and shortcomings. For this the player need to understand first the flaws and shortfalls, only then he can overcome...

A successful product development does not mean its deployment will also go successfully. Similarly a great project deployment team does not ensure a good quality product development. Both are entirely different and need a different attention. That is where the role of Quality Assurance comes into picture. Quality Assurance ensure a complete and universal handling...

A successful project closure doesn’t mean there will be stopgaps any further and all clouds of danger on the project are over. Project sign-off and project closure if happen on a successful note, are always welcomed by any project implementation team. Some activities that still need a lot of attention even after this stage is...

After completion of every project, as a project manager, you need to introspect to find out few answers. All projects might not end on a positive note. A project that travels its complete path without a single deviation to its timelines or financial guidelines can be termed as 100% successful. But it usually never happens...

At times it might not be visible in the beginning about the learning your team would be taking along by the end of the project. But depending on the rough tides encountered during the project lifecycle, it might turn out that each member is carrying a heap of learning from the project. One thing is...

When you are asked to lead a project it is very important for you to understand it to the root level and gain first hand experience. This might require a lot of discussions, interviews and brainstorming sessions with your own management, customer and internal team owners. Ensure that all such interactions add a substantial amount...

Software Testing is under the preview of Quality Control. The quality control team ascertains and ensures the software testing. There are many aspects of software testing and hence is possible to perform automated testing with the help of software testing tools. It is not possible to perform software testing in fully automated manner. There is...

No technology in project manager’s life can relieve him from efforts required in Quality Assurance. Quality Assurance is all about building quality processes that need to be adhered at relevant checkpoints. It is something like a check post after every few miles covered to ensure right passengers in the right vehicle adhering to all norms...

A recent and a very simple example to understand the issue – A laptop was to be delivered to a remote location customer. Repairing cost a few dollars and delivery cost to that location – double than the repair cost. The laptop was brought in the repair center. It was repaired by one of the...

Recently I attended an event where a stand-up comedian was invited as a gap filler after one of the interesting social media related interesting sessions. It is irrelevant to name that newcomer comedian who probably didn’t know about how to ensure not to cross that thin line gap between live comedy and cheap act. Just...

It is not difficult to deliver a product to your customer but meeting your customer’s expectations in terms of quality of the product and maintaining best of the services post delivery of a product is critical. That is where the core of the business lies. You will never be able to get a business again...

TERI (The Energy and Resources Institute) is a not-for-profit institute in India engaged in research on energy, sustainable development and environment. TERI’s main focus is on finding out innovative ways of efficient and sustainable usage of natural resources. It is an independent institute that took birth in 1974 and since then it has consistently proved...

Project Management is a tricky job. The job of a project manager is like a car mechanic who adjusts the average by adjusting clutch, fuel discharge and brakes. All three have a different connection if we see in project management perspective. The clutch adjustment will lead to a better speed management, fuel flow related to...

Project management must have inbuilt sensors for detection of flaws (or shortfalls) in the system to monitor project progress quality. These sensors have to carry a fast response time and should be active in all kind of environments of the project management ecosystem. The sensors developed should not only be capable of project quality monitoring...

A project failure does not mean necessarily the failure of a project manager. It is the project management mechanism that needs to be hit to ascertain the basic flaws in the mechanism. There might be a wrong project methodology adopted to handle a particular kind of project and hence the chances of project failure increase...

Project Scope, project timelines and monitoring are the prime tasks of a project manager. If a team member fails to honor his or her individual tasks timelines, it is not the failure of that individual team member. It clearly indicates a lack on a monitoring process. The monitoring process has to be well crafted so...

As a project manager it is important for you to perform lot of conversions. First conversion that you do in your project management journey is customer requirement to project requirement. Similarly there are many conversions that happen during your project journey that we can list down as: Customer requirement to project requirement Project requirement to...

One of the question I asked, in an interview with Irum Zahra, an author from Pakistan, is based on managing her writing projects. I asked about her strategy formulations on planning, scheduling and monitoring her writing commitments, and her answer emphasized mainly on the fundamental realities of project management – project scope, milestones, work breakdown...